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Seward’s Other Folly:
America’s First Encrypted Cable
RALPH E. WEBER
On the early morning of 26 November 1866, a secret encrypted cable from Secretary of
State William Seward began arriving in the Paris telegraph office. The dispatch’s last
installment was completed at 4:30 the following afternoon. "I immediately discerned,”
wrote American minister to France John Bigelow, "that it was written more for the
edification of .Congress than for mine, for Mr. Seward knew full well at the moment of
writing it that the Emperor [of France] and his Cabinet were all more anxious than any
citizen of the United States to hasten the recali of their troops from Mexico, and that they
were doing everything that was possible to that end.” 1 News and rumors about the lengthy
encoded telegram spread rapidly through the French governmental departments and the
diplomatic corps: legation representatives flooded Bigelow’s office with inquiries. Bigelow
maintained a determined silence. The first steamer from New York to arrive in France
after the dispatch was written brought a reprint of the confidential cable in the pages of
the New York Herald. A confident Bigelow smiled: the reprint "confirmed my first
impression that it was written for Congress rather than for the Tuileries.” 2
1436, one hundred nine, 109, arrow, twelve sixty-four, 1264, fourteen hundred one, 1401,
fifteen forty -four, 1544, three sixty, 360, two hundred eight, 208, eleven hundred eight, 1108,
five twenty, 520^ five sixty-nine,569, ten sixty-eight, 1068, six fifty- three, 653, six sixty-eight,
668, fourteen forty, 1440, fourteen thirty-six, 1436, three sixty-six", 366, four seventy-nine,
479, seventy, 70,' five sixty-nine, 569, eight forty -six, 846, four ninety-one, 491, cross, eleven
seventy-three, 1 173, thirteen eighty-five, 1385, seventy-eight, 78, ten forty-seven, 1047, nine
hundred eight, 908, ten forty-seven, 1047, three sixty, 360, twelve fifty-nine, 1259, fifteen
• - Extract from Seward dispatch to Bigelow
This strange episode in American foreign relations commenced a fascinating chapter
in American cryptologic history. Moreover, the event shaped American State Department
codebooks for the next two generations and also precipitated a costly lawsuit against the
United States government.
Several months earlier Bigelow, wrote William Seward about the receipt of an
inaugural dispatch from the Atlantic cable entrepreneur, Cyrus Field, who transmitted a
special message from Newfoundland to.Paris: "The Atlantic cable is successfully laid: may
it prove a blessing to all mankind.” 3 Bigelow also joined in singing the chorus of
congratulations and praised what he termed the "umbilical cord with which the old world
is reunited to its transatlantic offspring.”
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Cyrus Field
Politically astute and with an acute awareness of European government
communications security practices because of his. European travels, Bigelow, who became
consul-general in Paris in 1861 and minister in 1865, recognized the new challenges for
communications security that accompanied the new Atlantic cable. He strongly advised
Seward to develop a new cipher for the exclusive use of the State Department so that
Seward could communicate secretly with his diplomatic officers; even better, he suggested
a different cipher for each of the legations. He warned Seward, "It is not likely that it
would suit the purposes of the Government to have its telegrams for this Legation read
first by the French authorities, and yet you are well aware that nothing goes over a French
telegraph wire, that is not transmitted to the Ministry of the Interior." 4
More worrisome to Bigelow was his belief that the State Department code was no
longer secret, for he believed copies of it were taken from the State Department archives
by the "traitors to the Government under Mr. Buchanan's administration,” and the
principal European governments now had the key. In conclusion, Bigelow added, the
department should take steps to "clothe its communications with that privacy without
which, oftentimes, they would become valueless.” 5
Seward's naive reply to Bigelow’s dispatch dismissed the conjecture that traitors took
copies of the code by stating that the code sheets were always in the custody of the
department's loyal chief clerk or clerk in charge of the French and other missions.
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Moreover, if a person were to make a copy, it
would take at least two long working days if
he had the necessary blank forms, and at
least a week without the forms. Then
Seward, continuing to write as a person who
had never used the code, noted that a
variation of a single figure or letter would
spoil the whole code. And he added an
astonishing statement: the Department code,
in service for at least half a century, was
believed to be the "most inscrutable ever
invented.” 6 Seward wrote that he, together
with earlier secretaries of state, held this
opinion, and therefore the Department
rejected the offer of five or six new ciphers
each year. Apparently, Secretary Seward’s
management skills did not include an
understanding of communications security,
especially in a European atmosphere. 7 Nor did he understand the administration of cable
communications when codes or ciphers were involved. Bigelow thought Seward too
talented and ambitious to be satisfied with being merely a political swashbuckler; rather
the secretary tried to rank with the leaders of men. However, "his wings, like those of the
ostrich, though they served him to run with greater speed, could not lift him entirely from
the ground If he did not march as fast as some, he always kept ahead of his troops, but
never so far that they could not hear his woi^d of command.” 8
On 29 August 1866, a gala dinner honoring President Andrew Johnson was held in
New York City. At the end of the evening, Mr. Wilson G. Hunt, one of the directors of the
New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company, approached Secretary
Seward and asked him why the federal government did not use the new Atlantic cable,
which had just been completed on July 28. It was a question that would eventually lead to
a $32,000 claim against the United States State Department. Replying to Hunt, Seward
said that the tariff was too costly, that "the Government of the United States was not rich
enough to use the Telegraph.” 9 Seward’s judgment, though exaggerated, was somewhat
accurate because the provisional tariff rates, adopted 1 July 1865, were very expensive:
cable charges between America and Great Britain were $100 or 20 pounds sterling for
messages of twenty words or less, including address, date and signature: every additional
word, not exceeding five letters, cost 20 shillings per word. Between America and
Continental Europe, charges were 21 pounds for twenty words. Code or cipher messages
were charged double. 10 All messages, according to the tariff, had to be paid in gold before
transmission. 11
Seward explained to Hunt that "the government was too poor to use the cable, because
the charges for its use, according to a tariff which was reported, were too highl and
William H. Seward
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practically oppressive and extortionate.” 12 Seward alarmed Hunt when he declared,
"under that tariff, the Atlantic cable would, as a medium of communication between
governments in Europe and America, be a failure; that the United States government
would not use it, and I had learned from foreign ministers residing in Washington that
they could not use it.” 13 Indeed, Seward explained, he had earlier prepared a message to
send to one of the American ministers abroad, and referred it to the telegraph company for
transmission; however, on learning the estimated charges (Hunt believed Seward
mentioned the cost at about $680), he cancelled the request and sent the dispatch by
mail. 14
In addition, Seward said, the immense. Civil War debt facing the United States
required economy and frugality. He was acutely aware that the federal government had
spent over three billion dollars during the four years of conflict; moreover, the federal debt
equalled almost one half of the gross national product. Government leaders faced the
largest debt the United States had ever experienced: the interest alone surpassed the
federal debt before 1861. 15 In fact, Seward’s overseas budget had been recently reduced
from $140,000 for the fiscal year ending June 1866 to $115,000 for 1867. The State
Department, Seward added, would lose public confidence if it incurred the great expense of
telegraphic communication under the existing tariff. Moreover, Seward recognized that a
code or cipher must be employed for telegraphic communication in order to maintain
confidentiality; and using the U.S. "cipher code” for a cable at the time "increased the
number of words about five times, and the expense of transmission, ten times.” 16
Erroneously, Seward believed the State Department code then current was the only one
used since the federal government had been organized.
An anxious Hunt told Seward that the telegraph tariff had been adopted on the
grounds of the cable’s novelty, and also it resulted from managerial inexperience with
setting rates. He urged Seward to convey the State Department’s objections in a written
communication to the company proprietors. Seward either promised or indicated he might
do so, perhaps after further reflection and consultation with the president. 17
Seward said he believed it was at this time that Hunt asked what rates the
government paid the domestic telegraph company. Seward replied that the War
Department "conducts that business exclusively” under regulations made by the War
Department, that the "war telegraph was a war instrument, and as I understood it, we
fixed our own prices and paid what we pleased.” 18 However, Seward’s understanding was
mistaken, for the government paid regular rates on Western Union lines. According to
Seward, Hunt asked whether Seward would use the Atlantic cable telegraph by way of
trial in .the same way as the domestic telegraph adaptation until some definite
arrangement could be made satisfactory to all. Seward promised to use the cable when a
proper occasion arose, and they both agreed that the government would do what was just,
and he hoped the telegraph proprietors would be equally reasonable.
According to Seward’s account. Hunt and he had the understanding that Seward could
pay what he thought proper for the trial use of the cable, and, moreover, that Seward
should either send the dispatch to Hunt’s care or advise him that the cable had been given
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to the agent so that the trial message would not be sent under the regular tariff, but
subject to the special trial arrangement. A bystander later recalled Seward’s emphasis
upon economy but when questioned further had no recollection of the trial message option.
Nor did Hunt, in his later deposition, recall any special trial message arrangement. 19
The after-dinner conversation between Hunt and Seward ended with Hunt’s belief he
would soon receive a written message from Seward with a request for lower rates! Seward,
in turn, said he believed he could send a trial message as an experiment for lowering rates.
The seeds of confusion, planted during this brief conversation, would grow when Seward
failed to send the written communication to the company’s proprietors.
Seward also had allies in his complaints about the exorbitant cable tariffs. An .
editorial in The New York Times praised the ingenuity that provided telegraphic
communication between the two continents, an "achievement much more grand than the
'Hanging Gardens of Babylon’ or any other one of the wonders of the Old World.” 20
However, the Times added that this monopoly should not "bleed the people.” This
newspaper and other large east coast publications were eager to lower their costs for the
cables sent to them by foreign correspondents. Prices, the editor wrote, must be lowered:
$5 in gold per five-letter word was too expensive. And with pleasure, the Times reported
six weeks. later on a letter from Cyrus W. Field that on and after 1 November 1866,
Atlantic cable rates would be reduced fifty percent. 21 Negotiations between the New York,
Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company and the Anglo-American Telegraph
Company resulted in the lowered tariff: messages of twenty words for $50 to Great
Britain, and $51.25 to Paris. Code and cipher messages would still be charged double. 22
Wilson Hunt sent Seward a listing of the new prices. Ten days after the new tariff
went into effect and to the delight of the cable company, Seward sent, in plain text, the
very first State Department cable via the Western Union Telegraph Company. It was a
brief dispatch to John Bigelow, the American minister to France, simply telling him that
his successor, General John A. Dix, would embark on the Fulton on 24 November. 23
Although cable company rules required prepayment for all messages, the State
Department did riot pay the charges of $60.37 for twenty- three words until the following
May. 24 Cable company directors now hoped the federal government would send frequent
communications via the Atlantic cable.
On 15 November 1866, in New York City’s Metropolitan Hotel banquet hall, 300
invited merchants, bankers, and other distinguished guests attended a banquet honoring
Cyrus W. Field for his outstanding work in the thirteen-year project for the laying of the
Atlantic cable.
In his remarks to the banquet guests, Field recounted the tremendous difficulties over
the previous thirteen years, especially for financing and constructing the complicated
project that consisted of four telegraph lines: London to Valentia, Ireland; Valentia to
Heart’s Content, Newfoundland; Heart’s Content to Port Hood, Nova Scotia; and Port
Hood to New York City. He gave special gratitude to British financiers for their enormous
support over the years even though over $1 million had been spent by New York investors
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for the western terminus of the cable before a penny had been spent in England for the
project. He also emphasized his hope that it would take no longer than twenty minutes for
messages to reach New York from London: indeed, he thought a message from Wall Street
to the Royal Exchange in London could be answered and returned to New York in an hour,
even by allowing ten minutes on each side for a boy to carry the dispatch from the
telegraph office to the business office.
Sensitive to the press and private complaints about the costly, indeed oppressive,
tariffs. Field explained that the investment totaled $12 million. The managers initially
were worried that the cable might again break; in fact, Field reported, some prophets
predicted it might last only one month. And now the company had two cables instead of
only one, and a third distinct line was planned. Experience had shown that instead of five
words a minute, operators could send fifteen. Thus, after only three months of operations
the tariff was reduced by just one half, and he hoped it would soon be brought down to one
quarter.
Wilson Hunt's earlier request to Seward for greater government use of the cable would
be answered a week after the New York banquet in honor of Field. Threatening events in
Mexico, where French troops supported a European emperor, forced Seward to consider
sending a secret encrypted warning to the French emperor, Napoleon III. The continuing
revolution and warfare in Mexico had troubled the secretary all during the American
Civil War. He feared this new expansion of a French empire in America. And with the
war’s conclusion, the situation along America’s southern border now became a major
foreign policy problem confronting Seward. 25
Seward believed it was necessary to send a dispatch to his minister in France, John
Bigelow, encoded because his highly confidential message would pass through American
and foreign telegrapher hands. However, encoded American diplomatic dispatches had
become a distinct rarity in the years after 1848, the end of the War with Mexico.
During the American Civil War, French armed forces, under orders of Napoleon III,
captured Mexico City and in 1864 arranged for Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of
Austria to take over the Mexican throne. A shrewd Secretary of State William Seward,
anxious about potential French support for the Southern armies if he complained too
vigorously about French intervention in Mexico, patiently waited until Southern military
forces no longer threatened the Union.
In the months immediately after the South’s surrender at Appomattox, the
apprehensive Seward pressured Napoleon III to withdraw his military forces in Mexico,
then numbering 28,000 men. According to Seward, this withdrawal would enable the
Mexican people to choose between Maximilian as emperor and Juarez as president. 26 In
January 1866, the French emperor ordered his military staff in Mexico, headed by
Marshal Francois Achille Bazaine, to prepare for evacuation from Mexico. By April, the
emperor agreed that 28,000 French troops would leave in three stages: November 1866,
and March and November 1867. 27 In late May, Bigelow was told the French troops would
be withdrawn; probably sooner than the scheduled time. 28 In June, Maximilian received
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word from Napoleon III that the French army was being sent home. In late August, press
accounts stated that Napoleon had been visited by the Empress Carlotta, Maximilian’s
wife, recently arrived from Mexico. She requested an extension of the time for the
departure of the French troops from Mexico, and Napoleon granted her wish. 29
A "back channel” to Seward was opened by the French government when it sent a
French agent, John D’Oyley Evans, from Paris with an informal and verbal message from
the French foreign minister, Drouyn de Lhuys, and Emperor Napoleon. Calling at the
State Department on 17 September 1866, Evans learned that Seward was confined to his
room by a severe illness. He informed Frederick W. Seward, the assistant secretary, that
the French government would "faithfully and fairly adhere to the very letter of the
understanding between France and the U.S. in regard to the evacuation of Mexico.” 30
Press accounts in France and Mexico about the emperor’s disposition to change the
evacuation schedule, complained Secretary Seward on 8 October, had produced a large
popular mistrust of the emperor’s sincerity. He emphasized that the State Department
continued to insist upon the fulfillment of the letter and spirit of the evacuation of the
French forces in Mexico. Clearly, Secretary Seward exhibited nervousness about the
French maneuvers, whether reported in the press, or by confidential messengers. 31 And
Seward, reading the American newspapers, witnessed the unusual interest of editors in
the American foreign policy crisis precipitated by France. Also, because the American
diplomatic dispatches were promptly published in the daily press, it seemed American
diplomacy was being conducted iti the newspapers.
John Bigelow sent an alarming dispatch to Seward, dated 8 November 1866, and
explained that the French ruler had decided to delay withdrawal of any troops until
spring: at that time he would remove all his troops, but none before that time. 32 Recent
successes of Mexican troops, reinforced by American volunteers, required the continued
presence of all the French forces. Moreover, the emperor assured Bigelow that he had
telegraphed the message to delay troop removal to Bazaine in plain text, not cipher, in
order to forestall any rumors about new secret French designs in Mexico. When Bigelow
protested that the French government may not have notified President Andrew Johnson of
this dangerous change in plans, Napoleon replied that the existence of the new Atlantic
cable lessened the threat of communications misunderstandings. 33 Finally, NapoleOn III
related that he had advised Maximilian to abdicate. 34
Seward read Bigelow’s dispatch with anger and frustration. In addition, the
Republican administration had just witnessed defeat in the recent congressional elections.
Some of the opponents were planning to attack President Johnson in the Congress. A
forceful cable to France might overcome the opposition, or at least lessen its criticism. And
promptly releasing the dispatch to the newspapers would demonstrate the
administration’s resolve. 35
Seward’s stern reply of 23 November (transmitted 24 November), encoded in the
Monroe code first used in 1803, was completed a day after receiving Bigelow’s dispatch,
and the response was scheduled for transmission on the transatlantic cable: Seward
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thought in accord with the trial cost basis reached with Hunt at the previous August
dinner in New York City. 38 Seward said that he had written his message with the
expectation that Bigelow would read the dispatch to the emperor. Because of this, no word
was left out for reasons of economy. Also, before transmitting, Seward submitted the
message to President Johnson and the cabinet, which met in an unusual session the
afternoon of the 23d, and they approved Seward's dispatch without amendment or
change. 37 One cabinet member commented on the potentially costly expense of sending the
cable; however, Seward explained to the president and the cabinet that he had made an
arrangement with Mr. Hunt whereby he could set the price for any dispatch he chose to
send. Also, Seward testified later, he had directed one of his subordinates to inform Mr.
Hunt of the dispatch at the time of the transmission: he had no recollection whether this
was done or not. 38 Actually, someone had alerted Hunt to the existence of the cable, and
Hunt telegraphed Seward on Sunday, 25 November, that the dispatch had been sent on to
Paris on the previous night. 39
‘The encoded Seward dispatch, termed a "pungent remonstrance to the French
government” by The New York Herald , was given at 6 P.M. on 23 November to the manager
of the War Department telegraph office, Charles A. Tinker, for transmission. 40 Tinker
recalled the original dispatch was written only in figures and that cable office rules
required him to spell out the figures in letters and transmit the letters and figures. He
immediately sent for another operator to make a copy of the dispatch so that he might
return the original to the State Department and still retain one for his files. Tinker began
to transmit the dispatch by 6:15, and it was repeated back to his office so that by 12:15 A.M.
the process was finished. It was the longest cable dispatch - 3,722 words - he had ever sent.
The Seward historic cryptographic document became the first encoded American
diplomatic dispatch to use the new Atlantic cable. A State Department clerk, John H.
Haswell, who prepared the cable, recalled much later: "The first cablegram [actually it
was the second] sent by the Department was an important one addressed to our minister at
Paris. It caused the French to leave Mexico. I was directed by the Secretary to send it in
cipher, using the Department's code, which had been in vogue since colonial times but
seldom used.” Despite its age, Haswell wrote, "It was a good one, but entirely unsuited for
telegraphic communication. Its cumbersome character, and what was of even more
importance, the very great expense entailed by its use impressed me, and turned my
attention to an arrangement for cipher communication by telegraph.” 41
Seward’s arguments in the cable, formulated like a lawyer’s brief, stressed that the
emperor had failed to confer with or notify President Johnson regarding modification of
the earlier troop withdrawal schedule. Moreover, the evacuation promised for the spring
offered no guarantee of fulfillment; and the change in the timetable interfered with
ongoing extraordinary efforts of the United States to cooperate with Mexico for pacifying
and restoring proper constitutional authority in the southern republic. Seward concluded
with the expectation that the emperor would telegraph or mail a satisfactory resolution in
reply to this dispatch; moreover, he, wrote that President Johnson believed the French
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expeditionary forces would be completely removed within the eighteen months originally
stipulated. 42
The New York Herald featured the French evacuation story on 29 November with a
brief article under the heading, "What is the Meaning of that Long Dispatch?” This
account reported a telegram had just been received from London that revealed Bigelow
had received a long dispatch and that it was related to "some new hitch in the Mexican
difficulty.” Additional reports in that newspaper on 1 and 2 December repeated the story
that the telegraph focused on the French troops in Mexico; and on 7 December, the Herald
described Seward’s testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
Moreover, Seward provided the full plain text of his secret dispatch. For more than six
decades, the Monroe code had provided a modest degree of protection; however, Seward’s
maneuvers with the committee, and possibly the Herald, greatly lessened communications
security and the value of the code.
The Herald also applauded the Seward dispatch with an editorial that stated, "It is an
improvement upon all his preceding correspondence on this subject since the close of the
rebellion. . . . there is something of credit due even to Mr. Seward, for the patience, the
diligence, and the tenacity with which he had held to his text, until we may say he has
literally scolded Napoleon out of Mexico.” 43
The Seward encrypted cable began as follows:
Washington,
November twenty-third, eighteen sixty-six
John Bigelow, Esquire,
United States Minister, Paris. I
A
Sir. - Your dispatch, number three eight|-four, 384, in regard to six twenty-eight, 628, six
fifty-one, 651, fourteen hundred four; 1404, fifteen fifty-one, 1551, is received . . . .^
Bigelow did not read the dispatch to the emperor; rather, his calm response to the lengthy
cable told of his note of inquiry to the French minister of foreign affairs, who was out of the
city.. Receiving no answer, Bigelow pressed the issue further with still another inquiry
requesting an explanation of the emperor’s motives for deferring the partial evacuation, of
the troops. In an interview on 30 November, the minister of state and government’s
spokesman in the legislature, M. Eugene Rouher, told Bigelow the transport vessels were
ready and waiting at Vera Cruz and that commanders expected to have the force returned
to France by March, at the latest. 45 Bigelow also used the cable to reply in code to Seward
that there, would be collective repatriation in March and that the French government
desired friendly relations with the United States. The minister also informed Seward that
his reply from Paris cost over 9,160 francs ($1,833). 46
Seward’s confidential dispatch to Bigelow contained more than thirty-five
transmission errors; some phrases were mistakenly repeated twice in the cablegram.
Many of these errors occurred during the rewrite process when the cable clerk substituted
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words for the numbers; thus, for example, "1424” was incorrectly sent as "fourteen twenty
six.” Seward’s original plaintext message of 780 words, when encoded, became 1,237
number groups with 88 additional code symbols, such as a cross and an arrow, spelled out.
These groups and symbols plus the address were rendered into 3,722 words for
transmission. 47
During December, Charles A. Keefer, a cipher clerk for General Philip Sheridan in
New Orleans, would provide invaluable information regarding the French withdrawal
from Mexico. This young man was one of twenty Union operators who came to the United
States from Canada and the other northern provinces. 48 Almost certainly, Keefer was the
first in the United States service to use communications intelligence in peacetime. In mid-
December, he wrote to General Ulysses S. Grant that he had happened to be in the New
Orleans telegraph office on 9 December when a message from Napoleon to General
Castelnau in Mexico was being transmitted via the French consulate in New Orleans. He
copied the message, translated it, and gave it to General Sheridan, who ip turn sent it to
Grant.
Keefer also copied an encrypted cable message to Napoleon, dated 3 December, Mexico,
arid could not decipher it. Hopefully, Keefer wrote, the 373-cable- word message might be
published in a French newspaper, and then the American consul or minister could forward
a copy to him so he could work out the key in order that he could decrypt future messages
between Napoleon and Maximilian. Keefer urged General Grant not to mention the
cipher clerk’s name in this matter because the telegraph lines were in the control of
Southern men, and if they suspected his intentions they would not allow him to come any
place where he could hear the instrument "clicking.” 49 It is likely Keefer never received
the plain text of the encrypted message and therefore could not work out the key; however,
this message, from Marshal Bazaine and General Castelnau, was published in 1930 in a
biography of General Castelnau. 50 It told of Maximilian’s desire to stay in Mexico; in
addition, the two French officers wrote that since the evacuation was to be completed in
March, it was urgent for the transports to arrive. Would it be possible, they asked, for the
French officers and soldiers attached to the Mexican Corps to have the option of returning?
Keefer wrote to Seward directly in early January, telling him the New Orleans
newspapers were printing a telegraphic synopsis of the 3 December Bazaine-Castelnau
dispatch to Napoleon and requested the secretary to send him a plaintext copy so that he
could work out the key to the encrypted intercept he held. He also reported he had
intercepted a dispatch from a reporter for The New York Herald, sent from New Orleans to
the editor, James Bennett. The reporter’s dispatch, datelined from Paris, described the
fact that the War Cabinet in Vienna had told the Austrian commander of the corvette
Dandelo at Vera Cruz to remain there until further orders, and also that Napoleon knew
this. Keefer emphasized the dispatch never came from Paris at all but originated in New
Orleans, and the writer told Bennett to publish it as European news from Paris.
General Sheridan found Keefer’s aggressive practices of great value, and he rewarded
the young man with a cash prize of $1,600 for managing a secret telegraph line, working
out the cipher duplicate messages from Napoleon and the Europeans involving
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Maximilian and others in Mexico, and counteracting the machinations of a secret society
in New Orleans and in the South. However, despite Sheridan’s statement, there is no
evidence in the remaining historical records that Keefer successfully decrypted the French
dispatches. 51
Keefer’s secret intelligence work continued with a dispatch to Seward on 11 January:
he included the text of a forty-nine-word cable message in French, sent in the clear, from
Napoleon in Paris to General Castelnau, dated 10 January. The emperor cabled as follows:
"Received your despatch of the 9th December. Do not compel the Emperor to abdicate, but
do not delay the departure of the troops; bring back all those who will not remain there.
Most of the fleet has left.” 52 Keefer enclosed the complete cable text, transmitted via the
French consul in New Orleans, and suggested that it gave a clue to Napoleon’s policy for
Mexico.
Keefer's final letter one week later to Seward, who was apparently troubled by
Keefer’s intercept practices, was an apology. The chastened cipher clerk explained his
only motive in sending the previous information was to be of service to the government: "I
did not exactly consider myself as playing the part of a spy but on the contrary I considered
it my duty as cipher operator ... to send you copies of the despatches concerning
Maximilian.” 53 Continuing his letter of justification, Keefer wrote that he realized the
secretary of war had removed all restrictions on telegraphic correspondence the previous
April; however, Keefer thought the current affairs in Mexico "would warrant me” in
telling you of the policy Napoleon intended to pursue towards Maximilian.
Keefer’s final request to Seward was not to mention his name regarding this matter
since it would harm his prospects as a telegraph operator on the Southern lines. And this
melancholy supplication concluded the first peacetime communications intelligence effort.
Apparently, Keefer did not realize that "Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail.”
Earlier State Department monthly bills in 1866 for using the domestic telegraph lines
were modest: for example, those received for September that, with an eight percent
discount, amounted to $73.79; for October, $76.34. 54 The November telegraph bill
amounted to $46.94. And then came the astonishing charges for the 23 November cable to
Bigelow - $19,540.50. This cost together with other cables sent in November added up to
$24,996.12, an amount equal to the yearly salary of the president of the United States and
three times more than that paid the secretary of state. 55 Secretary Seward was unwilling
and unable to pay the cable charges.
At the request of William Seward, Cyrus Field, the creative manager of the New York,
Newfoundland and. London Telegraph Company, met with Seward in Washington to
discuss the $25,000 bill. 56 Wilson Hunt accompanied Field. In many ways it was a
delicate mission, for the company desperately wanted the government’s business, Seward’s
good will, and the money. Field did not forget that future cable projects might require
American governmental support. During the hour-long visit in the secretary's office,
Seward complained that whereas he wrote a dispatch of only 780 words in plain text, and
had William Hunter, second assistant secretary of the State Department, put the message
91
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\
in code, the charges were for 3,722 words. 57 Field carefully replied that the message came
to the telegraph office in code, and it was transmitted exactly as submitted; moreover, he
added, Seward would have considered it a "great piece of impertinence on our part if we
had asked him” to change the dispatch. Besides, Field added; the company charged him no
more than it charged other governments. 58
Embarrassed and without sufficient funds, Seward asked Field to accept a partial
payment of between $5,000 and $6,000, based on the number of words in the original
message; if Field approved, the company would eventually be paid hrTull, and the
department would continue using the cable frequently. 59 Seward explained that Congress
had not appropriated sufficient funds that would enable him to pay this account. Field
then questioned him about the wisdom of using a cipher that had been in use since the
formation of the nation. Seward quickly replied that a new economical cipher would
replace the old one. In Field’s judgment, it was evident Seward had made a great blunder,
that when he ordered the dispatch to be put in cipher, he did not realize it would amount to
such a large expense. Hunt explained that they were not authorized to accept this $5,000 \
compromise because his company had already paid the money to the other companies and
that at the end of every month, the account was made up. Western Union then took out its
money and paid the balance over to the New York, Newfoundland, and London Company,
which took out its share. The balance was remitted to London. 60 After a few more minutes
of conversation, the secretary finally stated again he would not pay the bill. However, he
invited the gentlemen to dine with him. 81
Somebody leaked the news on the Seward-Field-Hunt private conference to The New
York Herald, for on 27 December the editor reported inaccurately that the cable company
charged $25,000 for the 23 November Seward dispatch and that Seward, not having
sufficient funds, paid only $5,000 on it. And then the newsman added with sarcasm: "The
United States government must be in a very bad way. All our cable despatches which we
have received since the opening of the line were paid for in gold at the other side of the
Atlantic, without any reservation or deduction, and we never made any demand for
abatement or delay in the payment.” The editor concluded, "It is a shame for the United
States government not to be able to pay its telegraph bills as promptly as a New York
newspaper.” .
That same day. Hunt and Field hastily composed a telegram of apology to Seward,
explaining that upon their return from Washington, they had reported the results of their
Seward interview to the directors of the Telegraph Company; however, where and how the
Herald obtained its information they did not know, and they regretted the editorial very
much. 62 An equally prompt reply from Seward acknowledged their note and added that he
had no doubt the journal obtained its information from a source unknown to them. 63
Though a nervous Napoleon had been "scolded” out of Mexico when the final French
troops left Vera Cruz on March 11, the diplomacy between Seward and the New York cable
company about the unpaid charges totaling $24,935.75 for the three November cipher
messages continued to embarrass both parties. However, the State Department continued
to use the cable: in December, for messages to Paris, Alexandria, London, and Liverpool
UNCLASSIFIED
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SEWARD’S OTHER FOLLY UNCLASSIFIED
with one message in code, and five messages in plain text at a total cost of $743.50. Three
messages in January to London and Copenhagen, two in code and one in plain text, totaled
$615; only one message, to Nice, for $77.25 was sent in February. Two messages, one in
code, one in plain text to London in March, at a cost of $1,157.50, were transmitted. 64 The
charges for all these cables were paid in gold by the department in early May when
Leonard Whitney presented the bill to Seward in person; however, the bill for the three
November code cables remained unpaid. Seward told Whitney that Field and Hunt knew
the reasons for his refusal. 65
Another unique cable dispute involving Seward began on Monday, 25 March 1867,
with the transmission of an encrypted 1,833-iword (the cable company called them "words”;
however, they were cipher characters) cable from the Russian minister, Edouard de
Stoeckl, to St. Petersburg. The dispatch began:
t5e51ydzs7x2l2kvzzkgte74z6xoykj8vwz747ng20p5jglgwy3x7zt8e8t2dkg8yfzlk
3ytde69ssp5oyt4krr1lokkftx122g2k5n3etgfnjtrfj1yx6k1zdlgw3pn55
and continued for more than forty-nine lines of encryption. This message is the first
encrypted cable ever sent by a foreign minister over State Department lines. It was
transmitted through the newly organized State Department telegraph office to Prince
Aleksandr Gorchakov, vice chancellor of the Russian.Empire, ini St. Petersburg at a cost of
$9,886.50.“
The lengthy cable by the dean of the diplomatic corps in Washington and Seward’s
friend, contained, encrypted in French, the basic treaty conditions for the purchase of
Russian America for $7 million. Stoeckl closed the cable with a firm note of economy and
extreme urgency: "I send this telegram at the request of Seward who pays for it and who
said to me that he has met with great opposition in the Cabinet because of the sum agreed
on and that for the affair to succeed it will be necessary to make haste and to have the
treaty confirmed by the Senate which is to sit for two weeks longer. If I receive reply
within six days the treaty can be signed and confirmed next week by the Senate.” 67
The Russian government promptly replied to Stoeckl with qualified approval;
$200,000 had to be added to the price in order to cover any claims by the Russian-
American Company. Seward, anxious to acquire this vast territory, agreed and quickly
prepared the necessary documents. Final negotiations for the purchase of Alaska, which
Seward considered his greatest achievement as secretary of state, concluded at 4 a.m. on 30
March with the signing at the State Department office. According to one account, Seward,
hoping to win over the recalcitrant chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
Charles Sumner, invited him to the early morning signing ceremony; however, Sumner
went to Seward’s residence by mistake and missed the function. Nevertheless, Sumner
eventually supported the expansionist treaty, and the Senate advised ratification on 9
April by an overwhelming vote. 68
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^ .
' . <z
~fj ~~ a jjrxi cJ^yi l fj f&y 4 z f ■ zo^£ y
^ ^ Z 0 ^ s~^ y j AX jr & f ft
JC£^±3L/£ ljA,£J-ti,i tij In, J Arid J/ i/xfd/
yf) dyw *$yijL s' f/t' J 4 y ^ J/dj/ / $>y u </ (iff-
d%fw/fyX'h / §f£xy zr^y j ^ i. 4 e ^rAv fTds
fv/lSC/Cx^ o o y'x. Z iy'lJ f y Aj/^yfyxfdo/yy
~ti (fjrt4j Yj* H j/)j£^zz/xz J^xi^iT
c ^<?fz^^jylioS4Li6fy&zfA c t^/i,J?)<f
LA ly t /i Z4 ft (fj^<y y^X-AXs
4 ^ o yd) ft ' J z c To 4 ^ y$ $ffft.'}yj..z /a)y l$T
jj rZy^t /w </iy Ay j>Jj/e£A:yf-
^£yy£Af6i&ye.y/ef£jfxT^y t/
A:t_ojx/Cy) t zy, yj) l ytj ft
fiTtS'j y ft e/Tsi'ffjy'y £-&</<!> Zitejr
yy yji*
&P
3)y
Russian cable regarding Alaska sent from XJ.S. State Department, March 1867
UNCLASSIFIED
94
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SEWARD’S OTHER FOLLY UNCLASSIFIED
As noted above, Whitney’s visit to Seward on 3 May resulted in a partial payment of
cable charges. However, now almost $10,000 for the Russian encrypted cable originally
charged to the Russian legation was transferred to the American account at the order of
Stoeckl. In addition, two cables from Seward to Adams on 15 and 23 May, sent in the
Monroe code, added another $7,300 to the unpaid account, bringing the total to over
$42,000. The troublesome account also increased Hunt’s and Field’s financial anxieties by
late May. Hunt telegraphed Seward, stating he and Field were going to Washington and
asking if it would be convenient for them to visit the secretary. An adamant and adroit
Seward promptly replied he would be delighted to see them socially at any time; however,
he would not hold any interview concerning the cable telegrams. He also cabled his
minister in France, John A. Dix, and Charles Francis Adams in London to "use the cable
no more in cipher or writing. It will not be used here.” 69
A disappointed Hunt, still financially sensitive to Seward’s power, quickly replied by
letter on 1 June to Seward and recounted the previous tariff schedule and Hunt’s
understanding that Seward would write to him about reducing the cable charges; however.
Hunt again explained, no letter from Seward had arrived. During November, he
continued, the State Department dispatches were promptly transmitted but never paid.
Instead, the New York Company, which would have kept less than one third of the
amount, remitted two thirds of the bill out of its own funds to London for payment.
Further construction expenses by the Newfoundland Company for two new landlines in
Newfoundland and a contract for a sea cable to be laid from Newfoundland to the French
island of St. Pierre, and thence to-Sydney, were pressing the company treasury. Hunt
concluded cautiously, "Although the company are greatly in want of money, they would
not press their claim at this time if it be inconvenient or embarrassing to the Government.
But the company have a greater trouble, and one that is exceedingly embarrassing, that is
a refusal on the part of the Government, after having used the telegraph, and we having
assumed and paid two-thirds for the Government, to acknowledge the debt.” 70 Hunt did
not mention the bill for the Russian cable.
Always a tough .negotiator, Seward sent a two-sentence reply: "I have received and
attentively read your letter of the 1st instant. I am, dear sir, Your obedient servant;” 71
One week later, Leonard Whitney, cashier for the telegraph company, asked George
Baker, the department accounting clerk, if he could collect for the May cable messages and
received a prompt ”No.” 72
Seward’s unhappiness with the cable costs for transmitting dispatches masked by the
Monroe code brought into existence the first new State Department code in fifty years.
This extremely awkward code, devised for economy, was based upon the letters of the
alphabet. The twenty-three words most frequently used in dispatches were assigned one
letter of the alphabet. For example, "a” was the', "b” was lt\ "c” was Have, and so on. "W”
was not used for the code (though it was in cipher) because European telegraph operators
were not familiar with this letter. The next 624 most frequently used words were encoded
by two letters of the alphabet: for example, "ak” for Those', "al” for Who ; and "az” for such.
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Three letters were used for the remainder of the diplomatic vocabulary, and a fourth letter
could be added for plurals, participles, and genitives.
On 19 August 1867, a copy of the hew code was sent to John A. Dix, minister to France,
and to Cassius Clay, minister to Russia, and to other ministers. 73 For security purposes,
Seward asked that the code be used with discretion and also that the minister should have
a small box made that could be fastened with a lock, the key to which should be kept by the
head of the legation. '
This novel code, which delighted the thrifty Seward; was used between August 1867
and 1876 but proved to be a disaster because European and American telegraphers often
merged code groups, and dispatches were frequently unread until mailed copies reached
the State Department weeks later. Indeed, the first encoded message received at the
department from the American minister in Turkey formed a long string of connected
letters and remained a conundrum until finally decrypted by an assistant clerk after days
of puzzlement. Similar messages came from Paris and one from Vienna; the latter one was
never decoded. 74 Seward’s battle with the cable company resulted in this supposedly
thrifty but flawed encryption system. 75
A tedious exchange of letters ensued in November 1867, after the New York Company
and Hunt informed Seward of its new tariff. The two men corresponded until late 1868,
when Seward left office. The telegraph company continued its requests for payment with
the new secretary of state, Hamilton Fish. Fish, however, reiterated Seward’s positions on
the cables.
Finally, on 25 February 1870, the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph
Company filed a petition in the United States Court of Claims and requested that the
government pay $32,240.75 in gold coin for the cable messages from the Department of
State to Paris and London. 78
The "Argument for the Claimant,” covering twenty-six pages, submitted on 13 March
1871, to the U.S. Court of Claims for the December term, 1870, reviewed the previous
correspondence and depositions taken in the case. Especially notable was Hamilton Fish’s
agreement that the accounts in the claimant’s petition were accurate except for the
Russian cable, which the State Department neither authorized nor paid. The claimants
agreed with Fish’s assertion. The Argument also highlighted the conversations between
Hunt and Seward as stated in the depositions before coming to the conclusion that there
was no evidence for a special agreement, binding upon the claimant, through which the
United States government would have the right to send telegrams over its own and
connecting lines at rates lower than the customary charges for sending telegrams by
private parties. Thorough in gathering data for the Argument, the lawyers for the
claimants also emphasized that the appropriations were adequate for payment of the
charges. ,
UNCLASSIFIED
96
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MEMORANDUM OF ACCOUNT WITH DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Department of State of the U.S.,
To the N ew York, N e wfoundland and London Telegraph Company, Dr.
MESSAGES
RECEIVED
FROM
WHOM
TO
WHOM
DESTINATION
NO. OF
WORDS
AMOUNT
COIN
DATE OF
PAYMENT
AMOUNT
PAID, com
amount
UNPAID, COIN
1866
NOV. 10
Seward ....
Bigelow
. . Paris
23
E
$60. 37
1867
May 4
$60
37
Dec.
24 ...
29 ...
30 ...
1 ...
Seward
Seward
Seward ....
Seward . . . .
Bigelow
Adams
Bigelow
Bigelow
. . Paris
.. London
.. Paris
. . Paris
. 3722
.. 280
. 761
" 74.
C
C
c
c
19,540 50
1,400 00
3,995 25
388 50
388
50
$19,54050
1,400 00
3,995 25
3 ...
Seward
. . Alexandria
36
E
112 50
>* u
112
50
3 ...
Seward
Adams
, . London
16
E
50 00
■i it
50
00
11 ...
Seward . . . .
Dudley
. „ Liverpool
26
E
65 00
» ii
65
00
17 ...
Seward . . . .
Dudley
.. Liverpool
30
E
75 00
H
75
00
28 ...
Seward . . . .
Dix
.. Paris
19
E
52 50
n H
52
50
1867
Jan. 10 . . .
Seward ....
Stevans
.. London
30
E
75 00
i.
76
00
"
12
Seward ....
Yeaman
.. Copenhagen
63
<:
330 00
, „
330
00
29 ...
Seward ......
Adams
. . London
42
C
210 00
■t H
210
00
Feb.
5 ...
Seward . ...
Aldis
. . Nice
. 30
' E
* - 77 25
ii ii
77
25
March
7 ...
Seward . . .■.
Adams
.. London
215
C
1,075 00
i«
1,076
00
"
25 ...
Seward
Adams
.. London
33
E
82 50
A'g 22,
1868
82
50
>i
25 ...
Gortschacoff* .
. . St. Petersburgh .
. 1833
E
9,886 50
9,886.
50
2,975 00
May
15 ...
Seward
Adams *
. . London
575
C
2,975 00
23 ...
Seward . .
Adams *
.. London ......
866
C
4,330 00
J’ne,'68
4,330 00
"
24 ...
Seward
Adams
. . London
22
E
55 00
52
00
24 ...
Seward
Dix
. . Paris
22
E
56 75
July 20
56
75
July
16 ...
Seward
Adams
. . London
13
E
50 00
50
00
22 :..
Seward
Adams
London
14
E
50 00
Sept,, 7
50
89
"
28 ...
Seward
Adams
. . London
12
c-
100 00
(|
100
00
- "
28 ...
Seward
Adams
.. London :
IS
E
50 00
ii ' n
50
00
Sept;
3. ...
Seward . . . .
Yeaman
.. Copenhagen
. 26
C
137 50
■" 23
137
50
19 ...
Seward
Adams
.. London
41
E
102 50
102
50'
"
19 ...
Seward : .
Hale
. . Madrid
14
E
53 50
" 20
53
50
Oct.
5 ...
Seward
Yeaman
. . Copenhagen . . . .
9
C
104 50
Oct. L4
104
50
Total
-
$45,540- 62
$13,299
97
$32,240 75
* Transmitted direct by Telegraph from office in Department of State
Cable company memorandum of account with Department of State
SEWARDS OTHER FOLLY UNCLASSIFIED
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Citing more than twenty court cases concerning various aspects of the dispute between
the cable company and the State Department, the New York, Newfoundland, and London
Telegraph Company lawyers concluded than the claimant should recover the $32,240.75
unless "its rights of recovery is [sic] defeated by the pretended agreement, alleged to have
been made between Mr. Seward and the claimant, previous to sending of said
dispatches.” 77
The United States’s defense regarding the claim specified the government never
agreed to pay for the telegraphic service at the published rates. Rather, wrote Thomas H.
Talbot, assistant attorney general, it agreed to pay an amount deemed by the secretary of
state to be proper compensation. In his deposition, dated 8 August 1870, Seward thought
the sum of $5,600 in gold would be a fair, just, and reasonable compensation for the
telegraph services. 78
The case was heard before the Court of Claims in Washington, D.C., on 26 May 1871.
In its "Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law,” the court found that the data presented
by the claimants were correct, that the secretary of state had paid charges for twenty-three
cables (of which seven were encrypted) at regular rates and that he refused to. pay five
other cable charges, all of them encrypted. Moreover, the company had paid $21,804.90 in
gold coin to the connecting lines and was owed this amount plus $10,435.85 for
transmission over its own lines, for the total of $32,240.75.
The court decided for the claimant in that amount. The State Department had one
victory: payment in gold was not required. 79 Rather, the judgment had to be rendered "in
the usual form in dollars and cents, without distinguishing the kind of money in which it
shall be paid.” Promptly, the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company’s
treasurer, Moses Taylor* wrote to the secretary of the treasury requesting that the
judgment be immediately paid, or five percent interest be added until paid. He enclosed a
certified transcript of the judgment. 80 And finally, on 28 August 1871, almost five years
after the Seward-Bigelow cable, the Comptroller’s Office paid the full amount in dollars
and cents. 81
tFOUO) Dr. Weber is a professor of history at Marquette University. He
completed research for this article while on assignment to the Center for
Cryptologic History (September 1991-August 1992) as a scholar-in-residence. He
has also served as a scholar-in-residence for the CIA (1987-88). Dr. Weber
received an A.B. from St John’s University (1948) and both an M.A. (1950) and a
Ph.D. (1956) from the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Weber is the author of LLS.
Diplomatic Codes and Ciphers, 1775-1938 (for which he received the National
Intelligence Study Center Scholarly Book Award) and editor of The Final
Memoranda of General Ralph Van Demon. Dr. Weber currently serves as an
associate editor of the American National Biography (a new publication that
will replace the Dictionary of American Biography).
UNCLASSIFIED
98
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SEWARD’S OTHER FOLLY U NCLASSI FI ED
Notes
1. John Bigelow, Retrospections of An Active Life (New York: The Baker & Taylor Co M 1909), III, 611. Also cf.
Beckles Willson, A merican Ambassadors to France 1 777-1928 (London: J. Murray, 1928), 287-288. Seward went
to extreme lengths to continue the charade, and his numerous dispatches concerning French forces in Mexico
continued to flow out of the State Department until March 1 867.
2. Bigelow, Retrospections t III, 6 12.
3. Bigelow to Seward, Paris, 3 August 1866, in Record Group 59, General Records of the Department of State,
Dispatches from U.S. Ministers to France, Microcopy 34, Roll 62, National Archives. Hereafter cited as RG 59,
M34, R62, NA.
4. Ibid. Several years later, Hamilton Fish would cable Robert Schenck, American minister in London, in code
and urge him to use code in his dispatches because the telegraph office was leaking information to the newspapers
in the United States: cf. Fish to Schenck, Washington, D.C., June 16, 1872, Hamilton Fish Papers, Letter Copy
Book, 1 3 March 1871 , to 25 November 1872, Library of Congress, hereafter cited as LC.
5. Bigelow to Seward, 3 August 1866, RG 59, M34,R62,NA.
6. Seward to Bigelow, Washington, D.C., 21 August 1866, Record Group 59, Diplomatic Instructions of the
Department of State, Microcopy 77, Roll 58, National Archives. Hereafter cited as RG 59, M77, 58, NA.
7. A determined Bigelow replied to Seward's dispatch by again stating the strong possibility that the cipher at
Paris and other legations had been violated by the "treasonable affinities of Mr. [William] Dayton's immediate
predecessors . . . .” cf. Bigelow to Seward, Paris, 12 October 1866, RG 59, M34, R62, NA.
8. Bigelow, Retrospections, III, 627.
9. Deposition of Wilson G. Hunt, 8 June 1870, RG 123, B307, NA. In a deposition, an onlooker, Mr. Lathers, said
at first he thought Seward was being facetious, and the conversation began rather jocularly; it then turned
serious as Hunt listened carefully to Seward's criticisms.
10. Petition of the New York, Newfoundland & London Telegraph Co. vs. The United States, filed February 25,
1870, Claim No. 6151, Record Group 59, Microcopy 179, Roll 319, 7, NA, Hereafter cited as the Petition, RG 59,
M179, R309, NA. Domestic or landline charges by the Western Union Company were at the regular rate for code
and cipher messages; however, cable charges were double: cf. Deposition of Charles Tinker, 16 September 1870,
RG 123, B307, NA. Code and cipher messages continued to trouble the telecommunications executives and
several systems were tried: for example, fees were based upon five characters per word: cf. James M. Herring and
Gerald C. Gross, Telecommunications; Economics and Regulation (New York and London: McGraw Hill Book Co.,
1936), 138-147.
1 1. In November 1866, a gold dollar equalled about $1 .40 in greenback currency: cf. Wesley Clair Mitchell, Gold,
Prices, And Wages under the Greenback Standard ( Berkeley: The University Press, 1908), 802.
12. Deposition of William Seward, 27 July 1870, RG 123, B307, NA. Seward knew that Hunt, Peter Cooper, and
Cyrus Fields, all of New York, were principals in the cable company.
13. Ibid.
14. Deposition of Hunt, ibid.
15. Irwin Unger, The Greenback Era: A Social and Political History of American Finances, 1865-1879
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), 16.
16. Deposition of Seward, RG 123, B307,NA.
17. All three depositions, by Hunt, Lathers, and Seward, mention that the secretary would write to the New York
^ telegraph company and offer suggestions for lower rates. '
18. Congressional legislation, approved 31 January 1862, authorized the president of the United States to take
military possession of the telegraph and railroad lines in the nation. However, in his deposition of 16 September
1870, Charles Tinker, the War Department telegrapher, testified the charges for the government messages sent
over the Western Union lines were the same as those for private individuals. The only exceptions were messages
sent over the Pacific telegraph lines: these lines were subsidy lines, and the government rate was lower than that
fixed for private concerns.
99
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19. Seward's most recent biographer wrote: "Seward was an agitator, a politician, and a statesman, all in one.
His irresistible impulse to pose and explain and appear all- wise and all-important earned for him a reputation for
insincerity and egotism. A perfectly fair-minded contemporary gave this answer to a question: T did not regard
Seward as exactly insincere; we generally knew at what hole he would go in, but we never felt quite sure as to
where he would come out.' It is a paradox that precisely explains the paradoxical Seward." Cf. John M. Taylor,
William Henry Seward : Lincoln's Right Hand (New York: Harper-Collins, 1991 ), 528.
20. TheNewYork Times, 13 September 1866.
21. Ibid. r 26 October 1866. Less than one year later, this newspaper reported on the financial success of the cable:
that two thirds of the entire outlay spent on the cable on 1866 would be returned in revenue from the first year's
operation. Moreover, if one were to add the cost of the cable of 1865, the return would be about 30 percent. Thus,
rates should be lowered to a moderate scale, wrote the editor, for then the press dispatches could be doubled in
length, and "more than doubled in value of their contents." Ibid., 11 July 1867. The source for these cable
revenues was not noted by the editor. George Saward, the secretary and general manager for the Atlantic
Telegraph Company, stated that the first year's operation of the cable provided a return of only 2 percent on the
- capital investment: cf. Saward to Hunt, 25 November 1867, in RG 59, Ml 79, R27,N A.
22. The Petition, RG 59, M179, R319, 10-12, NA. As specified in the tariff, all figures in the transmission had to
be expressed in words, and charged accordingly. Seward to Bigelow, Washington, D.C., 10 November 1866 in RG
59, M77, R58, NA. .
23. Seward to Bigelow, Washington, D.C., 10 November 1866 in RG 59, M77, R58, NA.
24. Deposition of Wilson Hunt, 8 June 1870, RG 123, B307, NA. Also the Petition,.RG 59, M179, R319, 15, NA.
According to the deposition of Charles Tinker, 16 September 1870, RG 123, B307, NA, the cable company required
that the payment in gold for the dispatches should be remitted weekly with a copy of the dispatches. However, in
practice, only the dispatches were sent forward, and the Western Union Company billed the particular
government office that was specified on the copy of the dispatch.
25. A notable Republican editor called the crisis the "greatest diplomatic difficulty our Government has had for
two years,” cf. ibid., 21 November 1866.
26. John H. Haswell, "Secret Writing,” The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, 85 (November 1912), 89.
27. On 5 April 1866, Le Moniteur , Napoleon's official newspaper, noted that French troops would withdraw on
these dates. Cf. Frederic Bancroft, The Life of William H. Seward (New York & London: Harper & Brother, 1900),
2:438.
28. John Bigelow to William Seward, Paris, 31 May 1866, as reprinted in The New York times , 7 December
1866. Much of the correspondence between Seward and Bigelow, often confidential, regarding the French status
in Mexico is reprinted in this issue of the newspaper. In a 16 May letter to Seward, also reprinted, Bigelow quoted
from the 15 May issue of semiofficial newspaper, La France, to the effect that the embarkation of Austrian
volunteer troops from Mexico had been countermanded, the enlisted men were discharged, and the majority of
these troops joined Maximilian's forces. The Mexican crisis, including confidential dispatches, fascinated the
press, troubled the Congress, and profoundly worried Seward.
29. The New York Times , 30 August 1866. Two weeks earlier, John Hay, charge d'affaires in France, wrote to
Seward and reported that the French minister promised "the plan heretofore determined upon by the Emperor's
Government will be executed in the way we announced.” Cf. John Hay to William Seward, Paris, 17 August 1866,
as reprinted in ibid., 7 December 1866. The New York newspaper enthusiastically supported Seward's foreign
policies regarding Mexico. Recalling the Monroe Doctrine, the Times' s editor wrote: "This country is directly
interested in this question and the people will insist that its interests shall be protected. Neither France nor any
other European Power can be allowed to gain such a foothold on this continent as the establishment of an empire
in Mexico, under her protection, would give them. It would be a perpetual menace to our own security." Ibid., 1
September 1866.
30. Record Group 59, Confidential Memorandum, Department of State, 17 September 1866 in Administrative
Records of the Department of State, Reports of Clerks & Bureau Officers, Entry 31 1, Volume 4, NA.
31. William Seward to John Bigelow, Washington, D.C., 8 October 1866, as reprinted in The New York Times , 7
December 1866.
32. Just a month before, Seward had written to Bigelow that the U.S. "relies with implicit confidence upon the
fulfillment of s the Emperor's engagement at least to the letter, and it has even expected that, overlooking the
fetter, it would be fulfilled with an earnestness of spirit which would hasten instead of retard the evacuation of
/ the French forces in Mexico." Seward to Bigelow, Washington, D.C., 8 October 1866 in The New York Times , 7
December 1866.
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33. John Bigelow to William Seward, Paris, 8 November 1866, in RG59, M34, R64, NA.
34. Bigelow to Seward, Paris, 8 November 1866, as reprinted in The New York Times , 7 December 1866.
35. GlyndonG. VanDemen^William Henry Seward(New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), 494-495.
36. At least one principal European power was using a code similar to the Monroe Code: cf. Haswell, "Secret
Writing,” Monthly Magazine 85 (November 191 2), 88. Haswell does not specify the particular nation; however, he
probably had reference to France, which was using a code with similar Arabic numerals (2209 613 562 273 15
2214 etc.) and which Charles Keefer, General Sheridan's cipher clerk, intercepted in New Orleans in December
1866: cf. Seward Papers, Microcopy, Roll 98, Library of Congress. Hereafter cited as Seward Papers, R98, LC.
87. The New York Times , 24 November 1866, noted the session as an "extraordinary convening of that body” and
speculated that the discussions focused on the withdrawal of French troops from Mexico.
38. Deposition of William Seward, 27 July 1870, RG 123, B307, NA. When asked if he had written to Mr. Hunt or
the New York Telegraph Company regarding his suggestions for lower cable rates, Seward replied he had not
done so, "that it would be inexpedient and unbecoming to make such explanations.”
39. Hunt to Seward, New York, 25 November 1866, in RG 59, M179,R246,NA.
40. New York Herald , 7 December 1 866.
- z ■ ■ *i
41. John Haswell to John Sherman, Washington, D.C., 20 January 1898. Photocopy in author's possession: the
original letter is in the possession of Mrs. Lester Thayer, Albany, New York.
42. General Philip Sheridan and 30,000 troops just north of the Rio Grande River added emphasis to Seward's
message: Taylor, William Henry Seward, 269.
43. The New York Herald, 7 December 1866.
44. The plain text of the encrypted cable from Seward to Bigelow, Washington, 23 November 1866, may be found
in RG 59, M77, R58, NA.
45. Bigelow to Seward, Paris, 30 November 1866, Seward”Papers, R98, LC. Also cf. Bigelow, Retrospections, III,
622-626, for Bigelow's evaluation of the French situation: that delaying the evacuation was merely an
"abbreviation rather than a prolongation of her occupation of the Republic of Mexico.”
46. Bigelow to Seward,. Paris, 3 December 1866, RG 59, M34, R64, NA. This letter is also reprinted in House
Executive Documents, 1:1, 39th Congress, Second Session, Serial 1281. Seward honored Bigelow's draft for 9,164
francs, 75 centimes: cf. Seward to Dix, Washington, D.C., 28 December 1866, RG 59, M77, R58, NA. Bigelow's
comments on Seward's political maneuvering with Congress regarding Mexico were reprinted in Beckles Willson,
American Ambassadors to France, 1777-1927 (London; J. Murray, 1928), 287-288. Apparently, Seward went to
extreme lengths to continue the maneuvers because his numerous dispatches concerning French forces in Mexico
continued to reflect heightened anxiety until the actual troop removal was completed in March 1867,
47. William Seward to John Bigelow, Washington, 23 November 1866, in Record Group 84, Instructions to the
United States Legation at Paris, Ci.l, NA. The letter book copy of the dispatch may be found in Diplomatic
Instructions of the Department of State, 1801-1906, RG 59, M77, R58, NA. At 3:10 p.m. on 25 November 1866,
the U.S. military telegraph office in Washington received Hunt's telegram to Seward from New York and
reported that the dispatch had been sent to Paris the previous night: RG 69, M34,R64, NA. According to The New
York Herald , 15 December 1866, Bigelow received the first sheet of the encoded dispatch on Monday morning, 26
November at 7:30, and the last page on Tuesday at 4 a.m.
48. William R. Plum, The Military Telegraph During the Civil War in the United States (New York: Arno Press,
1974), 2:357.
49. Keefer to Grant, New Orleans, 17 December 1866, Seward Papers, R98, LC.
50. Georges A.M. Girard, La Vie et les souvenirs du General Castelnau (Paris, 1930), 117-118. The actual
message is reprinted by E.C. Fishel in his fine article, "A Precursor of Modern Communications Intelligence,”
NSA Technical Journal, 3 (July 1958), 13-14.
51. Philip Sheridan Papers, Microcopy, Roll 2, LC. Sheridan wrote out this message sometime after 1871. He
explained he had given this amount of money to Keefer on or about 24 December 1866; he added that the
memorandum and reports on Keefer's operations were destroyed in the Chicago fire of 1871. Chicago was the
headquarters of the Military Division of Missouri, and when the city burned, the headquarters andall of General
Sheridan's records were destroyed. In an attempt to reconstruct the record, Sheridan had two clerks in
Washington copying everything relating to his campaigns as filed in the War Department, and these h copies
constitute a large amount of the Sheridan Papers in the Library of Congress. Cf. George A. Forsyth to General
Adam Badeau, Chicago, 2 1 November 1 873 , in the NHPRC Search Sheets for U.S. Grant, Library of Congress.
101
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52. Keefer to Seward* New Orleans, 11 January 1867, Seward Papers, R99, LC. General Philip Sheridan, in his
book, mistakenly stated the dispatch was received in cipher and translated by the telegraph operator, [Keefer]
"who long before had mastered the key of the French cipher.” There is no evidence Keefer ever solved the French
cipher. Philip H. Sheridan, Personal Memoirs of PJI. Sheridan (New York: Charles C. Webster & Co., 1888),
2:226. Sheridan also sent a copy of Napoleon’s dispatch to General Ulysses S. Grant from New Orleans, 12
January 1867, and wrote that the dispatch was genuine. Ulysses S. Grant Papers, Microcopy, Roll 24, LC.
Sheridan’s copy is in his Papers, R47, LC. '
53. Keefer to Seward, New Orleans, 17 January 1867, ibid. Copies of Seward’s replies to Keefer have not been
located in the Seward Papers nor in the State Department files in the National Archives.
54. Leonard Whitney to George Baker, Washington, D.C., 20 November 1866. RG 59, Records of the Bureau of
Account: Miscellaneous Letters Received, Entry 212, NA.
55. Leonard Whitney to George Baker, Washington, D.C., 17 December 1866, ibid. Whitney, cashier for the
Western Union Telegraph Company, seemed unconcerned about the huge increase in the monthly bill, for he
wrote "Please indicate what corrections, if any, are to be made in bills and return to me and I will send them to
you recptd.” He would soon learn there was a problem: Baker, the disbursing clerk of the State Department,
wrote to^im, enclosed money for the December telegraph bill and added "No arrangement has yet been made
with the Atlantic Telegraph Co.” Cf. Baker to Whitney, 18 January 1867, RG 59, Records of the Bureau of
Account: Miscellaneous Letters Sent, Entry 202, NA. John H. Haswell, "Secret Writing,” in The Century
Illustrated Monthly Magazine , 85 (November 1912), 89. He wrote that the cost of the cable exceeded $23,000. Cf.
Fletcher Pratt in Secret and Urgent: The Story of Codes and Ciphers (Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs- Merrill,
1939), 191-192, and Clifford Hicks in "Tales from the Black Chambers,” A merican Heritage , 24 (April 1973), 58:
both authors state $23,000 as the cost, E. Wilder Spaulding, Ambassadors Ordinary and Extraordinary
(Washington D;C.: Public Affairs, 1961), 72, notes the cost at $13,000; and Bigelow in Retrospections , 61 1, wrote
thatthe State Department waschargedsomething over $13,000.
56. Fields received a letter from Baker, which included Seward's request to come to Washington for a discussion
of the cable issue: cf. Fields to Seward, New York City, 12 December 1866, Seward Papers, R98, LC. The Hunt
Deposition also notes that he and Field went to Washington at Seward's request: Deposition of Wilson G. Hunt,
RG 123, B307, NA.
57. Hunter, from Rhode Island, began his service in the State Department in 1829, served under twenty-one
different secretaries of state and twelve presidents, and would clerk for more than fifty -five years. Cf. Page proof
of Whitelaw Reid’s column on Hunter for The New York Daily Tribune, which Reid sent Hamilton Fish, 20 May
1879, in the Hamilton Fish Papers, Container 123, LC,
58. Deposition of Cyrus Fields, 23 August 1870, RG 123, B307, N A.
59. Deposition of Wilson G. Hunt, 8 June 1870, ibid. Seward's biographer, Glyndon Van Deusen, found a
Machiavellian streak in him, "a love for obfuscating his adversaries by ambiguities that on occasion bewildered
even his friends,” cf. Seward^ 565.
60. Within the next year or so, the State Department owed a total of $32,240.75, and of that amount, Western
Union received $933.20; the Anglo-American and other European companies; $20,871.70; and finally, the
amount, which the New York Newfoundland and London Company should have received was $10,435.85. Cf.
Deposition of Henry H. Ward, 5 October 1870. RG 123, B306. NA.
61. Ibid.
62. Hunt and Field to Seward, New York, 27 December 1866, as reprinted in the Petition, RG 59, M179, R319, 34,
NA.
63. Seward to Field and Hunt, Washington, 29 December 1866, Seward Papers, R98, LC.
64. l>e Petition, RG 59, M179, R319, 15, NA.
65. Deposition of Leonard Whitney, 12 October 1870, RG 123,B306,NA.
66. StoeckI to Gorchakov, Washington, D.C., 25 March 1 867, RG 59, Telegrams Sent by the Department of State,
1867-69, Entry 309, National Archives. Hereafter cited as RG 59, E209, NA. StoeckI would use the State
Department telegraph office for two more telegrams (the State Department was charged $49.97) on 22 May and
25 May 1867, when he telegraphed the Russian consul, Martin Klinkowstrvern, in San Francisco and told him the
Alaskan Treaty had been ratified by the emperor and thus American ships and merchandise could be landed free
in the new northwest American possessions. He also cabled Gorchakov again on 20 June 1867, notifying him
ratifications had been exchanged. This time, $69 in gold was paid the same day: cf. RG 59, E209, NA.
67. StoeckI to Gorchakov, Washington, D. C., 25 March 1867, ibid.
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68. Taylor, Seward , 278. According to another account, Sumner went to Seward's house, where he learned from
Stoeckl and Frederick Seward that a treaty was being prepared: Stoeckl then went to the State Department to
meet with Secretary Seward and complete the treaty; however, Sumner went to his own home at 322 1 Street. Cf.
Van Deusen, Seward, 541. Apparently, Seward added the $200,000 to the purchase price on his own authority: cf.
Ronald J. Jensen, The Alaska Purchase and R ussia n- American Relations (Seattle and London: University of
Washington Press, 1975), 77.
69. Hunt to Seward, the Petition, RG 59, M179, R319, NA. Also Seward to Dix, Washington, D.C., 24 May 1867
in RG 59, M77, R58, NA. Seward to Dix and Adams, 24 May 1867 in RG 59, E209, NA. The cable charges of
$111.75 in gold were paid two weeks later, and subsequent cables were also paid within a few days after
transmission.
70. Hunt to Seward, New York, 1 June 1867, as reprinted in the Petition, RG 59, M3 19, R3 19, 35-37, NA.
71. Seward to Hunt, Washington, D.C., 11 June 1867, in ibid., 38.
72. Whitney to Baker, Washington, D.C. 19 June 1867, RG 59, E209, NA.
73. Seward to Dix, WashingtonJXC.. 19 August 1867; same date for dispatch to Clay. RG59. M77.R58.NA.
74. John Haswell to Hamilton Fish, Washington, D.C., 8 July 1873, Hamilton Fish Papers, R95, LC.
75. State Department Telegrams, 1867-1869, in RG 59, E209, NA reflect the complications posed by this code.
Also many other dispatches to and from U.S. ministers during these years contain other examples of this defective
code design.
76. The Petition, RG 59, M179, R319,56, NA.
77. "Argument for the Claimant,” RG 123, B306, 26, NA.
78. "Brief in Defense” filed in the Court of Claims of the United States, 3 May 1871, RG 123, B306, NA. Also,
Seward Deposition, 8 August 1870 in ibid.
79. Had payment in gold been stipulated, the cost to the government would have been $35,787 in greenback
currency: cf. Mitchell, Gold, 316.
80. Taylor to George Boutwell, New York, N.Y., 6 June 1871, Record Group 217, Accounting Office of the
Treasury Department, Office of the First Auditor, Misc. Treasury Account 180406, NA.
81. No. 180406, Comptroller's Office, 28 August 1871, ibid.
103
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